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According to this article on the event:
- The commission which screwed up the ballots order was composed entirely of Democrats
- All members of the commission took responsibility for the failure (meaning they didn’t identify who actually made the mistake)
- One commissioner blamed the failure on inadequate training from the Secretary of State’s office (which conflicts with the taking of responsibility for it)
- When interviewed, the commission was unable to list any concrete steps they had taken to ensure it doesn’t happen again
- (There’s no mention of any discussion of extending the polling hours)
So it really, really sounds like a bunch of Democrats disenfranchised the black voters of Hind county, then failed to take responsibility for the screw-up, then failed to take it seriously enough to actually fix it.
Happy to review any evidence to the contrary; this is the first I’ve heard of this debacle but the OP doesn’t seem to be backed up by the facts here.
Anyone have evidence of the Republicans’ alleged actions here?
https://mississippitoday.org/2023/11/14/hinds-county-ballot-lawsuits-dropped-mississippi/
In the Democratic Party’s lawsuit, a chancery judge ordered all Hinds County polling places to remain open an extra hour, until 8 p.m. The state Republican Party filed an emergency appeal to the Mississippi Supreme Court and asked the state’s highest court to overturn the order
Would it be a weird question to ask how many Black people were in that commission?
I mean, sometimes racism can take priority over party affiliations.
Just reviewed this AP article.
It agrees with everything I listed in the previous comment. Again, no mention of any proposal or debate around extending polling hours, nor of Republican opposition to this. It doesn’t refute OP’s claim; it simply doesn’t mention anything about it.
I just reviewed this article from WLBT (conceivably a local station?) that was published on election day, while this was happening.
It opens with this:
A member of the Hinds County Republican Executive Committee is considering filing a lawsuit to keep the polls open longer after a number of Hinds County precincts ran out of ballots.
“We’re trying to figure out how to do it,” said committee member Pete Perry. “We’re trying to make sure voters get to vote.”
In direct opposition to what OP claims, the Republicans were fighting to keep the polls open.
Again, still open to conflicting evidence, which support’s OP’s claim.
So far what I can tell is that Democrats dropped the ball, disenfranchised thousands of black voters, and then attempted to blame Republicans for it, after also claiming to take responsibility for the failure.
I’ve reviewed 3 articles on this: the three top results on the event from a google news search for
hinds county ballots. Those three articles do not back up what OP is claiming.There are many other articles. If someone else would like to step in and do some reading and add more sourced information about this, it would be greatly appreciated.
As of now OP’s claim about Republicans’ actions in this event is unsubstantiated.
Be skeptical, people
So a commission makes a mistake and this should lead to voter disenfranchisement? Why do you think that’s fine? Completely reasonable to request a small extension of 1 hour when the commission screws up (which inevitably means will happen sometimes independent of party affiliation).
Of course such committees take joint responsibility rather than pointing the finger at one person. These people are essentially volunteers and you will need people to volunteer in the future.
I agree with you about being skeptical here. It appears that this was likely just someone who screwed up. I doubt it was a conspiracy or intentional. In fact, both parties ended up suing to keep polls open:
As ballots ran short, groups filed two lawsuits to try to give people more time to vote Tuesday night. One was filed by the nonpartisan group Mississippi Votes, and the Mississippi Republican Party initially supported it. The other was filed by the Mississippi Democratic Party.